Children of Vice (Children of Vice #1)(66)

“I’ll honestly pay you to stop talking like that.” I cringed then looked at Pierce. “Are you really into that kind of voice shit? Dodged a bullet with that one.” I lifted the beer and tapped it over his.

“Oh, now that you married into money you think you’re better than us?” She put her hands on her hips. “You think you’re too good for your own family now?”

“Family?” I said and looked at Ethan, who grinned with the beer at his lips.

“She doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”

We both snickered.

Cillian tried to cut in. “Seeing as Ivy’s memory is on the short end, how about we all just enjoy—”

“She doesn’t know what we’re talking about?” Pierce spoke up and when he did I groaned, putting my head on Ethan’s shoulder, already knowing where this was going.

“Forgive him, for he knows not what he does,” I said just loud enough for everyone to hear and soft enough that I could still speak closely in his ear.

“Oh, pretend now, but seven years ago you were the one begging and crying about how you didn’t know how you were going to live without me. How no one understood you but me—”

“And I only ever think about having sex with you,” I said aloud, adding, “Oh my God, when I’m with you I see stars…yep, all of those were lines from Katharine Duong’s novel So What, I Faked It.” I spoke up to the rest of the observers, who’d spend the next decade making up shit to add to this story. “It’s a great novel, ladies, especially when you’re dealing with a micro.”

They couldn’t help it; all of them started to laugh and covered their mouths. Even Ethan snickered, glancing over at him.

“I thought you liked me jealous. You should have let him at least pretend.”

“You little—”

“SHUT UP!” Cillian finally broke his cool, hollering at them. “Goddamn, can I get a word in or are you two buffoons going to keep trying to make a psychopath feel something for you two?”

Psychopath. I’d been back here less than an hour and the label was already stuck back on my forehead.

Rory wrapped her arm around Pierce, pulling him closer to her.

“Now, are you two done pretending as well?” Cillian glared at me.

“Pretending?” Ethan questioned.

“Sorry to break it to you, Ethan, but we aren’t as stupid as you think we are. Ivy called us from prison two weeks ago, and now all of a sudden she’s married to you? Why?” He didn’t direct that question to us, but to the crowd he was trying to win over.

“Do tell,” Ethan interjected, but Cillian overlooked him.

“For years now some has-been and his has-been family is trying to wiggle himself back into Boston. Trying to make us bow the f*ck down. Like his pop. His father’s pop and his great-granddad before him. All to pay taxes out of our own businesses to a family that ain’t lived here for generations.” There were grumbles over that. A few of the older men spat to the left of themselves and stood taller, as if they were ready to fight if needed.

“All of us getting called up when your family gets itself on the brink of ruin.” His eyes shifted to Ethan. “Pretending to be Irish when we all really know you’re nothing but mutts.” He wasn’t done. No, he had to get a clean shot at me too. “Ivy, I loved you like a little sister. I promised your father I’d watch out for you—”

“Was that before you killed him? Or did you make that promise in prayer while Rory framed me for a crime she committed?”

More people began to mutter, but Cillian just rolled it off. “Were you so desperate to get out that you’d believe any lies he told you and whore yourself out to him?”

My fist clenched and Ethan shattered the bottle in his bare hands, the glass cutting his hands, the little of the beer that was left pouring onto the patchy grass. Eyes narrowed, he glared at him. “If you want to insult someone, keep it directed at me, not my wife. You don’t speak to a woman like that and you sure as f*cking hell don’t talk to my woman like that.”

“The woman you’ve been with for what, three days?” He snickered. “Excuse me if I don’t take your shame seriously. You played her. Fine, but you aren’t—”

“For some odd reason all of you are under the impression that I married Ivy for Boston.” He took my hand, stepping onto the grass and standing with me. “That I’m so desperate to hang on to all of you, and this city, I married a woman I didn’t know. How arrogant can you all be? I didn’t marry Ivy from Boston. I married Ivy, daughter of Sean O’Davoren, the same Sean O’Davoren, who, when me and my siblings were kidnapped, kept us safe until we could get back home. I married Ivy, who was once the freakishly tall ten-year-old who fed the cats in the basement.”

He actually laughed, but I was frozen, his grip on me tightening. Just as quickly as he laughed it was gone and he was deadly serious again. “Everyone likes to think my family spends our days scheming and plotting…that is whenever we aren’t taking milk baths and eating with diamond forks. But the truth is, I’m just a guy who married his long-time crush. If you all want the Callahan family out of Boston, fine, that is your right.” He took out his phone and dialed three numbers. “And it’s done. We’ll leave as soon as Ivy finishes up some business and our honeymoon is up. Thank you for the shitty beer.”